


The Wedding Gown

by shinymogwai



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Female Tabris/Leliana friendship, Girls talking about girly things, Implied Alistair/Female Tabris, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 01:06:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2794181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinymogwai/pseuds/shinymogwai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leliana catches the Warden Commander reminiscing, and the conversation shifts to pretty dresses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wedding Gown

It had been almost a week since they visited the temple of Andraste. Almost a week since they left that strange, frightening town-- even cleared of the more aggressive cultists, Haven retained its unsettling atmosphere-- and almost a week since the Guardian had questioned each member of the party in turn. Leliana did not pretend to understand the meaning of his words for the others, nor had she asked them whose face they saw once the gauntlet was done with (surely it hadn't been the one she saw. It couldn't have been). It was, quite simply, none of her business.

And yet, she found herself worried for their leader. The elven woman had been acting strangely since they departed. Really, she had been acting strangely since they were last in Denerim and were barred from the alienage, but this was... different. In Denerim, she had been angry, manic, pacing back and forth and wandering off every few hours to see if, perhaps, the guard would let her in  _now._ It was all understandable, of course--her family was within. Leliana was surprised she did not attempt to break down the gate.

But now...

The warden had been terribly quiet. Not sad, not really. Simply... quiet. She had spoken to Leliana about the urn, briefly-- just listened the bard's gleeful ramblings, really-- and she did not seem particularly grieved, and yet...

Pensive. Yes, that was the word Leliana wanted. The warden had been unusually pensive lately.

Ordinarily, Leliana would leave her friend to her thoughts. If she wished to share them, Leliana would gladly listen, but for now it seemed that the elf wished to be left to her own thoughts. Leliana understood the need for solitude, for contemplation, very well indeed.

Unfortunately, dinner was ready, and if the elf did not hurry there would not be any soup left. Leliana would have sent Alistair to fetch her-- Maker bless him, he still blushed like a schoolboy whenever Leliana alluded to the feelings he shared with their leader-- but he and Morrigan had started bickering  _again,_ and, well.

Perhaps Leliana was not being  _entirely_ altruistic when she left the ever-noisier camp to search for her friend.

Leliana found her seated beneath a fir tree, hunched over a bundle of some sort. When Leliana spoke the woman's name, she started, scrambling to her feet and hiding the bundle-- cloth, probably an article of clothing-- behind her back.

"Leliana," The warden greeted her, adopting the small, sheepish smile she used whenever she was embarrassed. "I didn't hear you coming."

Leliana sighed, lips curving unbidden into a smile. "You should not let your guard down, out here in the wilderness. I could have been a darkspawn, come to gobble you up!"

The warden's laugh is her usual, easy one, and some of Leliana's concern in lifted. "If you were a darkspawn, I would have felt it. Warden senses, remember?" To emphasize, she tapped the small silver pendant around her neck, identical to the one Alistair wore, to the one that most Wardens wore, apparently. Leliana could not help but notice a second charm hanging from the elf's neck, smooth and shiny, like a tiny mirror. The warden had found it in the temple of Andraste, and had taken to wearing it constantly. When she thought no one was watching, the elf would stop and look at it, stare down at her reflection.

"Well, darkspawn or no, dinner is ready." Leliana saw the warden shift, grip tightening around the bundle of cloth behind her back. The elf's hesitation did not go unnoticed. "Then again," Leliana shrugged, making her way over to her friend's side. "When I left, Alistair and Morrigan were having another one of their spats, so going back just now may not be the wisest thing."

The warden groaned, briefly forgetting that she was trying to hide something. "Maker,  _again?_ " With a sigh, the elven woman scooted to the side, nodding to the earth beside her. "Would you like to sit? We can wait out the storm together."

Leliana's ever-wise commander.

The bard took a seat beside her friend, trying not to appear  _too_ curious about the garment the elven woman produced from behind her back.

It was a dress, off-white in color, with colorful embroidery in gold and turquoise thread. It would have been a pretty thing, if not for the bloodstains, old and brown, that had seeped their way into the fabric, and the large rip along the collar, as if someone had grabbed there and pulled.

The warden must have noticed her staring. "It's-- it was my wedding dress." She explains, running her fingers over the stitching. Leliana felt her brows rise, and could not stop a small, confused noise from escaping her throat.

"Wedding dress? You are-- married?" Leliana had never given much thought to the ring the warden always wore, before now.

"No! I mean, yes-- briefly." The warden sighed, fists closing around a handful of cloth. "It's-- it's a long story."

Leliana did not press her friend. She would not.

"It-- it didn't feel right to throw it away. Not after Shianni and I worked so hard on it." Shianni. The warden's cousin, if Leliana remembered correctly. The warden laughs again, but this one is small, wistful, not at all like her usual one. "We spent the better part of a month making it, and longer saving up for the materials. I just-- wanted something pretty..."

Leliana reached out-- slowly, ready to withdraw her hand at the first sign of her friend's displeasure-- and ran her own fingers over the cloth. Looking closer, Leliana could see the truth to the warden's words. The dress was sewn carefully, lovingly. The stitching, while nothing compared to the elaborate gowns Leliana had seen in Orlais, was beautiful in its own, simple way.

"It's lovely." Leliana said, unsure of what else she could possibly say.

The warden chuckled-- not quite as sad as the last one, not as carefree as the one before it-- and shook her head. "It's plain. Nothing like the dresses I've seen ladies wearing. Always wanted one of those, but I never had any clue how to sew one."

Leliana paused, sitting back to look at her friend. "Do you still?" She asked.

"What?"

"Do you still want a dress like that?"

The warden's cheeks colored. She was the fiercest warrior Leliana had ever seen, and yet she was as bad as her lover at times like this, flushed and stammering and fingers knitting together. "I-- I don't have any use for a dress like that." She protested, but it wasn't difficult for Leliana to catch the hesitation, the secret, quiet want.

"Perhaps not  _now,_ but once the Blight is done, surely there will be time for celebration." Leliana's lips curved upwards impishly. "I am sure Alistair would not mind seeing you in such a gown."

There. As soon as she spoke them, Leliana could see that her words hit their mark. The warden's eyes lifted, her gaze pointed towards the distant camp, where her fellow warden was surely still bickering with the apostate.

"He's-- he's never seen me wear anything besides armor, I don't think..."

Ah yes, Leliana could see it now. The crowd would part, and Alistair would see his lady, dressed in silk and finery. The crowd around them would vanish, and they would drift towards each other, lost in the other's eyes. Alistair would compliment her-- or try, he would probably trip over his own tongue in the process. And she would likely do the same, accepting his praise with a blush and a stammer. Leliana could not suppress a giddy grin at the thought.

"Hmm, let's see." The bard looked her friend up and down, trying to picture  _just_ the right dress for the elf. "It will say 'elegance,' but not 'stuffy.' Something off the shoulder, perhaps? To show off your neck and... assets. The skirts should not be _too_ long, so that you may still run in them. It should still remind people that you are a Warden, of course. Perhaps grey in color? No, that is too drab. A steel blue, to go with your eyes."

The warden was giggling, Leliana was pleased to see. "We could always sew a griffon on it."

Hmm, there  _was_ an idea. "A griffon motif, yes! Oh, don't laugh, I mean it! Perhaps a pattern of them, along the collar and hemline... Yes, yes I can see it now! We can have them embroidered on the shoes, too. Mustn't forget about shoes. Now, about your hair..."

The elf reached up, tugging gently on a straw-colored lock. "My hair? It's too short to do anything with, isn't it?"

Leliana shook her head emphatically. "No, not at all! You can  _always_  do something with hair. Perhaps we can adapt a Dalish style? They do like their braiding..."

The warden started to respond, but she was promptly bowled over by a large, excited Mabari, and she devolved into squawks and acks and "boy, get  _off!"_ Sten was close behind the animal, ever-scowling as he announced that Oghren, in his drunkenness, had begun to strip.

The wedding dress came out of it a bit worse-for-wear, covered with muddy pawprints and slightly shredded by the dog's nails, but the warden didn't seem to mind overmuch. It was returned to her pack, carefully folded, and it was not the last time Leliana would find the woman looking at it, pressing her fingers to the fabric with a wistful look in her eye, but never again did she try to hide the garment behind her back, or look quite so sad at the sight of the bloodstains and the tear along the collar.

It was not, after all, the last pretty dress she would wear. Leliana made sure of that.


End file.
